02.12.14
Posted in GNU/Linux at 12:40 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Recent analysis of Arch Linux, a fast-growing distribution of GNU/Linux which is developed by a broad community
Arch Linux 2014.02.01 was very recently released [1], building on top of good tradition of flexibility like Debian’s (MATE is now available in Arch Linux [2,3]). Some Ubuntu (and formerly Xandros) users rave about Arch Linux [4] and some longtime users provide a rather objective, balanced analysis [5]. For some [6], including former Microsoft employees [7], Manjaro Linux is a simpler route to embracing Arch Linux [8]. In any event, now that the first 2014 release of Arch Linux is out [9] the distribution might be worth exploring. The userbase is growing rapidly and the reviews are mostly positive. It offers a wide diversity of desktop environments, very much like Gentoo or Debian. It’s not run by a large company and development is very much decentralised, as it probably ought to be (favouring development, not management). This is a ‘true’ community distribution. █
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Additionally, Arch Linux 2014.02.01 includes all the updated packages that were released during the past month, January 2014. As usual, existing Arch Linux users don’t need this new ISO image, as it’s only intended for those of you who want to install Arch Linux on new machines.
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Here in my office, I have two different desktops running Linux. One is running Arch Linux and the other is running Ubuntu. Both distributions are fully up to date, with Ubuntu running the latest release. Each desktop has its assigned tasks throughout my work day, with the Arch box serving as my daily use PC for most work.
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I’ve relied on Ubuntu for years now. I enjoy the fact that it has a strong support community, access to any Linux software I might want to run, plus it’s very simple to setup. And if you need a recent version of a software in Ubuntu, usually you have the option of adding an Ubuntu PPA (Personal Package Archive) so the new software title can be installed. Because of its ease of use and software availability, Ubuntu users won’t find themselves wanting for a Linux software title enjoyed on other distributions.
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Arch Linux, the popular rolling release Linux distribution, seemingly has a reputation as bleeding edge, elitist and sometimes unstable. Bleeding edge? Most seem to agree it is. Elitist? I’ll leave that to you to decide. Unstable? Perhaps, perhaps not, which is what I will now try to give my take on it as a full time Arch Linux user.
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The difficulties I encountered installing and running Manjaro would normally have pushed me to part company with this distro — I must assume that the rather rapid development cycles and the number of different desktop environments in the fray caused some quality control issues. To my pleasure, however, all of the editions that ran on my laptops found the wireless connection without any trouble.
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You don’t necessarily have to run Manjaro Linux to get the same effect here, but Dobbie03 does note that he’s had a great experience with it—it’s been rock solid, according to him, so if you’re looking for a new distro to try, it might be worth a look.
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Posted in GNU/Linux, KDE at 12:27 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Some recent KDE news, including two new releases and a lot of application updates
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KDE Software has always enjoyed undisputed reputation among the Open Source users; its desktop environment continues to get voted as one of the most popular and widely used DE. KDE SC is not limited to home users, it’s used by organizations around the globe.
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Today, February 4, the KDE Project has announced, as expected, the second maintenance release for the stable KDE 4.12 Applications and Development Platform, as well as the sixth maintenance release of the KDE 4.11 Plasma Workspaces.
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Today KDE released updates for its Applications and Development Platform, the second in a series of monthly stabilization updates to the 4.12 series. This release also includes an updated Plasma Workspaces 4.11.6. Both releases contain only bugfixes and translation updates; providing a safe and pleasant update for everyone.
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KDE’s second update of its 4.12 series of Workspaces, Applications and Development Platform is now available in the stable repositories.
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A paradox lies at the center of the Linux desktop today. For all their limitations, reader polls consistently show that KDE is the single most popular desktop, preferred by just under a third of users. Yet at the same time, 40-45% use a desktop that sits on top of GNOME technology, such as GNOME3, Cinnamon, Mate, or Unity.
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The new app replaces the old Synaptiks touchpad management app and has many more buttons and settings that you can twiddle and tweak to get the best experience. The Kubuntu team would like to thank Alexander Mezin for working on this replacement app as part of his GSoC project. The package comes complete with its own plasmoid for easy access to enable and disable touchpads! Quite useful for folks who don’t have a physical hardware button to Enable/Disable touchpads
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The web page also states three aims: beginners friendly interface, multi server management – and that there should be no interference in mixed usage of web interface and shell. Especially the last point caught my attention: many other web based solutions introduce their own magic, thus making it sometimes tricky to co-administrate the system manually via the shell. The listed objectives also make clear that cockpit does not try to replace tools that go much deeper into the configuration of servers, like Webmin, which for example offers modules to configure Apache servers in a quite detailed manner. Cockpit tries to simply administrate the server, not the applications. I must admit that I would always do such a application configuration manually anyway…
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The main addition in Homerun 1.2.0 is a second interface built atop Homerun’s collection of data sources, the Homerun Kicker launcher menu shown above. Unlike the first Homerun interface, which is designed for use on the full screen or desktop background and meant to be both mouse- and finger-friendly (you can check it out here if you’re new to Homerun or just need a memory boost), Homerun Kicker is a more traditional launcher menu design optimized for efficient use by mouse or touchscreen when placed on a panel.
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As a result of the first article on KMail, three things emerged. First, while some users may like the semantic desktop, there is serious dislike for the semantic desktop (as has been implemented in KDE4) amongst a considerable number of other users, and these people set about disabling the software in various ways. Second, why does the implementation of the semantic desktop produce such apparent deterioration in the performance of the KDE4 desktop and what happens if you try to remove it altogether ? Third, what are some possible solutions ? This second article tries to explore those three items.
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This article considers some problems I had when I tried to set up and use the latest version of what I still consider is a superb email client: KMail. I believe that this package is no longer intended for the “stand-alone” user, but is firmly aimed at multi-user networks. Attention is also drawn to another far less important but still extensively used KDE4 package, the patience card-game software which I believe has been degraded due to over-development.
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That was exactly what I had in mind (and I assume Àlex as well), and it would be a great way to leverage one of Plasma’s biggest strengths: Flexibility, which offers choice! Of course maintaining multiple Plasmoids for the same purpose also means multiplied work, but not all Plasmoids have to be created by the core Plasma team. Everyone can write a Plasmoid for a certain purpose, add the X-Plasma-Provides line to the desktop file and thereby plug it right into this system! With this in place, whenever a user complains that a Plasmoid is either too complex or offers too little choice and an alternative exists, we can point them to it and they can easily switch.
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The developer of the beautiful and attractive Nitrux, Compass, and Flatter icon themes is preparing an ARM mini-computer called QtBox and designed to be portable, small (8.8cm x 8.8cm x 8.3cm), running the Nitrux 1.0 operating system and using the eye-candy KDE 4.12 desktop environment.
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Moreover, this new stable release of QupZilla fixes speed dial issues when JavaScript was disabled, fixes tab tooltips display issues when tab previews were disabled, repairs search shortcuts that are longer than one character in the address bar, allows users to disable tab previews from the preferences dialog, and fixes building against the new GNOME and KDE keyring passwords.
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One of the great things about KDE theming is the fact that the middle man is cut out of the deal. Many theming features invite you to browse different theming possibilities right where you sit. You don’t have to find the websites and the themes; KDE is built to let you choose those things right inside the app. This is pretty cool. From there you can download and install it right from the same GUI.
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As usual I try to improve sieve support in KMail.
In 4.9, I fixed the dialogbox for managing them.
In 4.10, I added a good text editor with highlighting and auto-completion.
In 4.11, I added a dialogbox for generating sieve code directly (like kmail filter dialogbox)
In 4.12 I added sieve script parsing and an UI to create sieve script even if you didn’t know sieve language.
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Last week I have been in Barcelona at the KDevelop / Kate sprint with all the other nice people working on those projects. As always, it was very cool to meet everyone again and spend a week together improving software. A big thanks to the organizers and sponsors, too!
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Posted in GNOME, GNU/Linux at 12:22 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Impressions of GNOME 3, GNOME 3.12, Wayland-induced delays, Fedora 20 GNOME, GNOME raves, and a lot of new application releases
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The GNOME Project has announced today, February 5, that development version 3.11.5 of the Mutter-Wayland software is now available for download and testing, bringing various bugfixes and improvements.
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The upcoming and highly anticipated GNOME 3.12 desktop environment is supposed to be released on March 26, 2014. However, it appears that the entire release cycle might be delayed by approximately a week, because of the Wayland 1.5 release.
However, the bad news (for GNOME developers) is that all the GNOME 3.11.x milestones will be delayed as well in order to avoid longer freeze periods. As you might know, GNOME 3.12 will be the first ever release of the controversial GNOME desktop environment to fully support the modern Wayland display server.
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Writing to inform you that the GNOME release team is pondering moving the date for 3.12.0 out by approximately a week, to align the schedule with the Wayland release plans (a 1.4.91 release including all the xdg-shell API we need is planned for April 1). The latter 3.11.x milestones would be shifted as well, to avoid lengthening the freeze period unnecessarily.
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After a few weeks toying around with Fedora 20, I thought it was time to share my findings. Because Gnome 13.10 brought a long list of changes, I opted to download the Gnome Desktop version of Fedora 20. This release brings a vast list of features and updates and here you can see them for yourself.
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I think GNOME is mostly a “love it” or “hate it” kind of desktop these days. The folks who love it defend it passionately while the ones who hate it will deride it with their last breath. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of middle ground in the GNOME Wars.
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I’m writing the following article from the perspective of a normal user that uses Linux (Arch Linux at the moment) exclusively, both at home and work, for over 12 hours daily, with GNOME 3 as the main desktop environment. A users with over ten years experience in open source desktops, years during which I’ve tested any known desktop environment/window manager.
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The GNOME Project has announced a few days ago that Epiphany 3.11.4 web browser is available for download and testing, as part of the recently released GNOME 3.11.5 unstable desktop environment.
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The development team behind GNOME’s default text editor application, Gedit, has announced recently that another milestone of the upcoming Gedit 3.12 release is available for download and testing.
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GNOME Maps 3.11.5 introduces much smoother goto animations, avoids an unnecessary zoom-out at end of goto animations, “exact” is displayed instead of “0 km2” if accuracy area is less than 1, makes the gnome-maps executable a real binary, fixes a compiler warning, and updates recent added time on re-visits.
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GNOME Software 3.11.5 introduces a concept of rating confidence for each app, adds a file handler that allows the application to install local packages, allows each plugin to define the dependencies on other plugins, the “Picks” on the overview are now automatically generated, and a star widget is now displayed for each application, in the category panel.
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It’s been some time in the making, with the redesign work started a couple of release cycles ago, but we finally reached a state where it’s usable, and leaps and bounds easier to use than the previous versions.
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GVFS 1.19.5 sets etag::value for FTP, sets infinite timeout for enumerate response for daemon, removes GVfsUriMountInfo, forces openpty(3) on BSD for SFTP, rates limit progress callbacks for daemon, and properly removes socket_dir for gvfsdaemon.
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gThumb 3.3.1 is the first maintenance release of the development 3.x series. It now employs the dark theme, a GtkHeaderBar is now used instead of a toolbar and a menu, adds better support for RAW images, a frame is now displayed around an image in the image viewer, and zoomed images are presented in a better quality.
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Posted in GNOME, GNU/Linux, KDE at 12:13 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A look at some recent developments around lesser-known desktop environments for GNU/Linux, including brand new ones
THE “BIG THREE”, namely GNOME, KDE, and XFCE, are not the only games in town. Now we have Defora [1], Moonlight [2], and Ome [3], not to mention LXLE [4,5] and Enlightenment, which recently released E18 [6-8] and will soon release E19 [9]. There are several other desktop environments that continues to be developed, whereas several perished over the years.
Speaking for myself, I recently switched from KDE to Enlightenment on the desktop where I write articles. Enlightenment is a fantastic desktop environment even for relatively new desktops, especially if memory becomes a constraint and speed can use some significant improvement. There are bugs, sure, as well as ‘missing’ features, but this desktop environment which I used regularly over a decade ago is still very light and powerful. Without it, I would have no choice but to cope with bloat, pretty much like in Microsoft and Apple land.
People who claim that GNU/Linux offers not much of real choice because it’s all about KDE, GNOME and some desktop bundles that are no longer maintained (or have been stale for a decade or two) are simply not looking hard enough. It can be rewarding for everyone to experience many environments on mobile (GNU/)Linux and even on desktops (like Unity); the more, the merrier. This attracts develops because it fosters creativity and self expression. To emancipate ourselves from GUI tyrannies (Apple is the worst in that regard) we need to explore alternatives environments, just as we do in many walks of life. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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If you have not yet found the perfect open-source desktop match for your needs, the desktop environment born out of DeforaOS is yet another option. This desktop environment is built using GTK2 and part of a larger effort to provide “ubiquitous, secure and transparent access to one’s resources” and to work regardless of form factor.
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Moonlight is a project still in its early stages and likely will fade away like the many other third-party desktop environments with limited manpower and scope. Moonlight Desktop is trying to be a lightweight desktop for the Raspberry Pi and other low-powered, low-end, old devices — similar in scope to Xfce, LXDE, Enlightenment, etc. They really don’t seem to be far along at all right now and are still working towards an appearance for their desktop.
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Originally the developer behind Ome was set out on making his own operating system and was thinking of using LLVM IR for its application binary while making the packages like Android’s APK files. He had posted to the LLVM mailing list last month for feedback on these plans but now today he’s posted a new LLVM mailing list message.
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I have not been a happy user of Ubuntu since the shift to the Unity desktop. Even the Lubuntu version has some bothersome Ubuntu traits attached. Enter the LXLE distro with its Lubuntu-less appearance. It provides a Long Term Support advantage over using Lubuntu and has a larger and more useful default application set. Even on poorly endowed hardware, this distro boots in less than 1 minute.
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The development team behind the Enlightenment project, an open source, powerful, lightweight, and eye-candy desktop environment for the X window system has announced the third maintenance release of the stable Enlightenment 0.18 branch, which includes various fixes and improvements.
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Just one year after the long-time coming official release of Enlightenment 0.17 (E17), Enlightenment 0.18 has been released!
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The freeze for E19 will begin in one month, on 28 Feb 2014. After that point, I am likely to reject most* requests for feature additions, and I will be shifting into release mode.
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Posted in Law at 10:05 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Rapid exacerbation of human rights, with surveillance-based torture and assassination that expand in terms of scope
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Impending bill from Republican Marc Roberts highlights growing movement at state level against government surveillance powers
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The former head of the CIA and the National Security Agency, General Michael Hayden has said that the reforms recently announced by president Barack Obama to tackle mass surveillance are limited, as they allow the spy agency “a pretty big box” in which to continue to operate.
Hayden was reported by the Guardian as speaking at an Oxford University lecture, when he said that while some of the reforms would be onerous for the NSA, the agency still had room to manoeuvre, enabling it to continue to collect metadata.
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According to documents published by German newspaper Der Spiegel, the NSA uses a tactic called “method interdiction,” which intercepts packages that are en route to the recipient. Malware or backdoor-enabling hardware is installed in workshops by agents and the item then continues on its way to the customer.
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Sen. Rand Paul will sue President Barack Obama and top officials in the National Security Agency over surveillance.
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When the German version of the FBI needs to share sensitive information these days, it types it up and has it hand-delivered.
This time last year, it would have trusted in the security of email. But last year was before Edward Snowden and the public revelations of the scope of the National Security Agency’s PRISM electronic intelligence-gathering program. After Snowden, or post-PRISM, is a new digital world.
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If you visit sites such as Upworthy, Hacker News, BoingBoing or around 5,000 other sites today, you’ll notice an odd headline: a banner stating “Today We Fight Back.” The banner runs a loop of facts about the NSA’s internet and phone surveillance activities, such as “The NSA is regularly tracking hundreds of millions of devices.”
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In fall 2013, the U.S. National Security Agency quietly began booting up its Utah Data Center, a sprawling 1.5 million-square-foot facility designed to store and analyze the vast amounts of electronic data the spy agency gathers from around the globe. Consisting of four low-slung data halls and a constellation of supporting structures, the facility includes at least 100,000 square feet of the most advanced data reservoirs in the world. The project represents a massive expansion of the NSA’s capabilities and a profound threat to press freedom worldwide.
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At least 117,000 websites and citizens of the world joined a world day of rejection to the massive surveillance in Internet by the National Security Agency of the United States (NSA) and its allied from other countries.
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It was a walk down memory lane for Mark Klein on Tuesday night, when a crowd gathered to hear him speak out, yet again, about the secret sharing of data between a top communications company and the US government.
Klein, a retired AT&T technician, leaked several internal AT&T documents in 2006 that showed that the NSA was collecting data from AT&T through a restricted room, 641A.
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The Freedom of Information Act requires a release, but the spy agency says it is excluded due to national security concerns.
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One of the legacies 2013 will leave behind, as Andrea Peterson wrote recently in The Washington Post, is that it was “the year that proved your paranoid friend right.” Since January of last year, we’ve learned that the National Security Agency is collecting massive amounts of phone call metadata, emails, location information of cell phones and is even listening to Xbox Live. Shocking as this obviously was to me, as a citizen of the country of “We the People,” one founded on civil liberties, what was perhaps more shocking was how mild the reaction of many Americans was. While polls showed that a small majority of U.S. citizens opposed the NSA’s collection of phone and Internet usage data, after months of reassurances by the President that the programs would be reformed and used responsibly, the numbers seem to have changed (or at least, the story seems to be dying down).
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A court in Pakistan on Wednesday ordered authorities to produce an anti-drone activist abducted just days before he was due to travel to Europe to meet lawmakers, in a case that spotlights citizens’ distrust of the unmanned aircraft and government security forces.
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“Unmanned” reports the impacts of drone strategy. This documentary directed by Robert Greenwald, investigates drone strikes at home and abroad through more than 70 separate interviews, including a former American drone operator who shares what he has witnessed in his own words, Pakistani families mourning loved ones and seeking legal redress, investigative journalists pursuing the truth and top military officials warning against blowback from the loss of innocent life.
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“If indeed there is mulling over the possibility of assassinating another American citizen abroad, really what they should be telling the American people is that we’re moving into an era where state-sanctioned assassinations of people is becoming routine and there is no reason for the American people to expect that this will not develop to the point where Americans are routinely targeted in America,” he added.
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Tuesday’s protest included a blockade of the South Lake Union Streetcar, with activists holding a banner that read: CIAmazon. That was in reference to Amazon Web Services’ partnership with the CIA, and it comes a day after protesters blocked a Microsoft Connector bus on Capitol Hill on Monday.
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MKUltra also enjoyed the help of ex-Nazi scientists.
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The attorney general has extended the deadline till June of the six year old investigation into allegations that a CIA prison was operated in Poland, where terrorist suspects were held and tortured.
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Independent research published recently contains revealing facts about the involvement of doctors and other health professionals in tortures in military jails of the USA.
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Last week it was reported that former CIA Director James Woolsey, forced to resign during the Clinton administration for his bungling of the Aldrich Ames affair, was going around telling people that the reason Jonathan Pollard, the notorious Israeli spy, was still in prison after 29 years is because the U.S. government is anti-Semitic. In short, Pollard remains in prison because he’s a Jew.
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According to Wikipedia, a content farm is an organization that employs large numbers of “writers to generate large amounts of textual content which is specifically designed to satisfy algorithms for maximal retrieval by automated search engines.” In a way, the American MFA system, spearheaded by the infamous Iowa Writer’s Workshop, is a content farm, too—one initially designed to satisfy a much less complicated algorithm sculpted by the CIA to maximize the spread of anti-Communist propaganda through highbrow literature.
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